Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 331.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "David M. Seaman" <dms8f@etext.lib.Virginia.EDU> (28)
Subject: Re: 14.0323 e-books from Virginia
[2] From: Matthew Sweegan Gibson (36)
<msg2d@etext.lib.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Re: 14.0323 e-books from Virginia
[3] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> (22)
Subject: errors in e-books
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:50:06 +0100
From: "David M. Seaman" <dms8f@etext.lib.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Re: 14.0323 e-books from Virginia
Despite all our best efforts, online texts contain errors -- those
which we have keyboarded are supposed to be no worse than 1 error in
20,000 keystrokes (99.995%) and that is typically true.
We are always delighted to have errors reported by our users -- and
we check them and fix them as soon as possible. The Middle English
Chaucer text mentioned below [not part of the 1,200 MS Reader ebook
collection whose announcement prompted the comment below] has received
a lot of work and I'm sure there are still moments of imprecision left.
As a collector of print editions of Chaucer I can say for certain that
errors occur in print too.
The term "publishers" below should be "readers" -- we are not offering
our ebooks to publishers but to any reader who chooses to download them.
Already our own additional proofing of the TEI files re-cast in MS Reader
format have shaken loose some typos and layout clumsiness that we had never
noticed in their web versions -- and we have had some small number of
errors reported by grateful readers, who understand that by reporting
them we can make the book better for the next reader. This is one of
the best ways that our users can help us.
David Seaman
Etext Center, UVA
>> Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 07:22:50 +0100
>> From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com>
>> >>
>> I hope the publishers proofread the e-texts from Virginia carefully.
>> Recently on ChaucerNet a couple of egregious errors were noted in the
>> supposedly finished UVA Chaucer e-text.
>>
>>
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:50:27 +0100
From: Matthew Sweegan Gibson <msg2d@etext.lib.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Re: 14.0323 e-books from Virginia
This is a reply to Norman Hinton's email about any potential egregious
errors in the ebooks we've been producing:
What we have found, since any version of a any one text is bound to
have variants, is that the ebooks have been an excellent way to go back
and actually FIX errors. We have received nothing but positive response
from the public reading community who have been downloading our ebooks and
graciously some readers will actually email us and tell us of any typos
which we can then fix in both our SGML-encoded texts and in the ebook
version.
So, ebooks have actually become a positive second filter in correcting any
errors in the texts we have up.
Happy reading--and please, if you do find any mistakes, contact us and let
us know.
yours,
Matthew
Matthew Gibson
msg2d@virginia.edu
Assistant Director,
Electronic Text Center
The University of Virginia
On Mon, 9 Oct 2000, Humanist Discussion Group wrote:
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 323.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
> <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
>
>
>
> Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 07:22:50 +0100
> From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com>
> >
> I hope the publishers proofread the e-texts from Virginia carefully.
> Recently on ChaucerNet a couple of egregious errors were noted in the
> supposedly finished UVA Chaucer e-text.
>
>
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:04:23 +0100
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: errors in e-books
The question of some errors in the Virginia Chaucer reminds me of a notion
I heard at one time that is perhaps worth talking about now: publishing
incompletely proof-read material and depending on reporting of errors from
readers in a long process of getting it right. Clearly a method that could
be abused, yes, but should it be absolutely condemned? Consider the sort of
open-source publishing that Stoa (www.stoa.org) is engaged in, specifically
Suda Online, where relatively unedited, unchecked material is put online,
marked with its status, then revised and re-marked in stages as it goes
through the complete editorial process. A brilliant idea, it seems to me.
Although many of us, I suppose, have spent sufficient time proofing texts
that we could claim to embody the passion for getting it right, still we
must realise how difficult this is. (I also suspect that several of us have
great stories about opening the printed volume at long last only to spot at
first glance some horrible error!) The question, it seems to me, is how can
we use the e-medium intelligently in this regard? I hope that at least
someone from Stoa will comment.
Yours,
WM
-----
Dr Willard McCarty / Centre for Computing in the Humanities/
King's College London / Strand / London WC2R 2LS U.K./
+44 (0)20 7848-2784 / <ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/>
maui gratias agere
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